Legend of the Seas Review

3.0 / 5.0
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Legend of the Seas - Western Mediterranean

Review for the Western Mediterranean Cruise on Legend of the Seas
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derekp
First Time Cruiser • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Aug 2007
Cabin: Superior Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony

Just back from Italy and Croatia cruise We've cruised before but this time took our grown up children with us ages 24,28,30 for their first cruise Overall it was a good experience and we enjoyed the family holiday but there were many niggles from a lot of the passengers about various aspects of the cruise that encroached on what could have been an excellent rating Firstly let me deal with the good points. The ship is in good/excellent condition and the fittings and furnishings were fine. We had our stateroom carpet changed during the cruise as part of an ongoing refurbishment and we wouldn't have known the workmen had been in if they hadn't moved the shoes from next to the bed - an excellent job with no mess. The beds and linen are great and very comfortable The ship is spotless and the cleaners were very apparent all hours of day and evening cleaning and polishing public areas but not intrusive. Always very friendly The cabin steward Ahmed was excellent. Often round and about and did a great job with the cabin. Loved the animals he made from the towels every evening when we got back from dinner. The main problems that people were talking about were the lack of communication/information, misinformation, poor control of the younger passengers - mainly teenagers - by parents and staff, the poor service in the dining room at night, and the confusion about the published itinerary. Dealing with the last point first the majority expected 2 days in Livorno from the way the cruise was advertised when in fact it was 1 day , leaving at 01.00 during that night with the following day cruising. There was no mention of a sea day/ cruising for that day in the itinerary. This meant that we had 30 hours cruising time set aside to go from Livorno to Portofino, a distance of only about 70 nautical miles. A wasted opportunity as many passengers had planned for a trip to Florence on day 1 and a local trip to Pizza/ Lucca on day 2. When I asked about the wording of the itinerary at Customer relations I was told that as the ship was in port from midnight to 01.00 hrs, ie for 1 hour of that day, it counts as a day in Livorno. This seemed to be someone messing up and trying to avoid taking responsibility. The Captain occupied the time by sailing up Nice and along the french and north italian coast before returning towards Portofino. We actually docked in Genoa as the forecast was for rough seas and as we were due to tender in Portofino we may have been unable to disembark. The ship had a lot of teenagers on board but the problem was that they were left unsupervised by their parents and allowed into the adult only areas or during adult only times in other areas ie solarium. The staff seemed to ignore this unless specifically asked to deal with it. I saw teenagers eating pizza actually in the solarium swimming pool late at night whilst the staff watched. The dining room staff were very friendly but either had too many tables to cover or were poorly organized so repeatedly forgot things like serving bread and water despite being asked for them more than once. Our head waiter was busy on this cruise helping out serving water and wine at tables to keep the service going. Lastly the behind the scenes communication information and administration was poor. At Livorno we were told we could only leave the ship by taxi, private transfer, ships tour or shuttle bus as we were not allowed to walk through the docks on a safety basis. That seemed sensible but the unreasonable part was that there was a charge to use the shuttle - imposed by RCCL. The ship should have arranged for the port authority to lay on a free shuttle out of the port if it didn't allow pedestrians traffic on the dockside. From reading previous reports and talking to other passengers it seems that the standards on this cruise have slipped but hopefully RCCL will turn them around quickly and put this ship back near the top of the table for excellent cruising experience. On this cruise experience only a fair to good overall Not decided yet about cruising with RCCL again but will keep an eye on future reviews and comments as I am sure this cruise isn't typical or RCCL's usual high standards that we based our original choice on.

Cabin Review

Superior Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony

Cabin D1
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